Regards, Ivan
Posted on 04/07/2003 5:22:59 PM PDT by MadIvan
Even as the fighting raged on the right bank of the Tigris yesterday, a strange gathering formed on the balcony of the Hotel Palestine, home to foreign journalists and their moustachioed monitors from the ministry of information.
Wearing his black Ba'ath Party beret pulled down tight over his skull and even more agitated than usual, Mohammed Said al-Sahaf, the thin-lipped information minister, held an impromptu press conference.
"The Americans claim their tanks are in the middle of the city. This is a lie," he huffed. "No American tank is in Baghdad. Never. They tried to get back into the city last night via the Daura motorway but most were forced to retreat and the rest were massacred."
He and his translator were occasionally drowned out by the sound of shots that rang out from the general tumult or by the howl of an American plane flying low over Baghdad.
"The fight continues," he said. "We are inflicting heavy losses on them and hundreds of their soldiers have begun to kill themselves. We advise them to withdraw as quickly as possible."
For his audience, sand crunches under their pens, covers camera lenses and stings their throats. He continued his rant, oblivious, rolling his eyes upwards behind his rimless spectacles.
"This is an historic lesson for the people in Washington who sacrifice their mercenaries."
Even as Sky News was broadcasting pictures of an American flag fluttering over one of Saddam Hussein's main palaces, the minister continued to harangue the journalists, accusing them of repeating British and American "lies".
Surprising the correspondent for the Qatari satellite network, he said: "I blame al-Jazeera for reporting this morning that there was fighting around the ministry and the al-Rashid hotel.
"I have just been to my ministry and visited the hotel. Check your facts and do not repeat lies," he said with a flourish.
"They are trying to fool you. They are showing any old pictures of buildings. They even went into the VIP section of the airport, just because Saddam Hussein may have sat in such and such a chair or slept in such and such a bed," he said.
At the end of the press conference, four grey ministry buses lined up in the road between the futuristic towers of the Palestine and Sheraton Hotels. The statue of the Thief of Baghdad aboard his flying carpet is covered with a thick coating of whitish dust.
"You are going to see that we still control the right bank," said an official.
The Americans are still pounding Baghdad's defences and have not captured the entire right bank of the Tigris. What is left of the Iraqi authorities has withdrawn on to the other side of the river.
While Saddam's inner circle seems to be going all over Baghdad to escape the bombing, the Hotel Palestine, protected by the presence of hundreds of foreign correspondents, is becoming the regime's last hold-out.
In the 1970s decor of the hotel lobby, the information ministry continues to function barely half a mile from the American front lines, as if nothing was going on.
An official wearing a houndstooth jacket and pomade in his hair sat in a disused souvenir shop yesterday and filled out reports on carbon paper.
Seated at six tables in the middle of the lobby, the ministry's guides continued to reply to requests from television crews in their usual way. "No. That is not possible. The exits to the city are blocked. Wait for the bus."
Adrien Jaulmes is Le Figaro's Baghdad correspondent
Regards, Ivan
The big boom is from the larger male woodpecker, with his 120 mm depleted uranium beak.
One way of looking at it is that the longer Baghdad Bob stays in business, the clearer view the Arab Street will have of the disjuncture between propaganda and reality.Sort of what Rush Limbaugh says about our "liberals": when socialism is utterly discredited we should always keep one on each college campus just as a museum piece.
ROFLMAO!
In other words, they are using the journalists as human shields.
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